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Companies' voices on social justice issues, such as racial justice, gender equality and LGBTQ rights, have become increasingly prevalent. To contribute to current knowledge around corporate communication on social justice, this study aims to understand the differential effects of three types of corporate social justice statements – symbolic statements, substantive statements on external actions and substantive statements on internal actions.

A between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 502), with different types of statements as the independent variable and corporate reputation and perceived corporate relationship-building efforts as outcomes. The three dimensions of perceived authenticity (i.e. perceived benevolence, transparency and commitment) were included as parallel mediators.

This study found that compared to symbolic statements, substantive statements on external or internal actions generated higher perceived authenticity on at least one of the three dimensions, which in turn, led to a more positive corporate reputation and perceived relationship-building efforts. Substantive statements on external actions and on internal actions also had differential indirect effects on the outcomes through different dimensions of perceived authenticity. Partisanship did not have a moderating effect on the mediating effects of perceived authenticity.

This study highlights the importance of authenticity in corporate social justice communication and reveals practical implications about how businesses should communicate with publics when engaging in social justice issues.

This study is among the earliest efforts to examine the effects of different corporate social justice statements. It contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the impacts of perceived authenticity on publics' evaluation of companies and opens up an avenue for future research to further examine various authenticity dimensions.

This study examines the effects of a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative on its employees’ organizational attachment and intent to leave. We propose that employees’ perceived authenticity of their firm’s CSR activity mediates the effects of a firm’s CSR initiative on employees’ attachment to the firm and intent to leave. We also hypothesize that employees understand the authenticity of their firm’s CSR initiative based on internal and external attribution mechanisms. We propose that internal attribution enhances authenticity, while external attribution reduces it.

We surveyed a sample of 450 employees from 38 Korean companies that were included in the 2009 Dow Jones Sustainability Index Korea (DJSI Korea). To test the theoretical model, we employed a linear structural equation modeling which allows the causal estimation of theoretical constructs after taking into account their measurement errors.

As predicted, internal attribution significantly increases employees’ perceptions of their firm’s CSR authenticity, whereas external attribution significantly reduces such perceptions. Employees’ perceptions of authenticity, in turn, increase their affective attachment and decrease their intent to leave. In addition, the effects of the two attribution mechanisms on organizational attachment and intent to leave were mediated by employees’ perceptions on authenticity.

Research on authenticity has been case studies or narrative ones. This is one of the first studies investigating the role of authentic management empirically.

We demonstrate that a firm’s CSR initiative is a double-edged sword. When employees perceive inauthenticity of their firm’s CSR initiative, the CSR initiative could be detrimental to employees’ attachment to the firm. This study calls attention to the importance of authentic management of CSR.

Informational transparency through social network services become the foundational reality to the contemporary management. To maintain competitive edge in this changing world, every stakeholder of a firm including managers, employees, customers, shareholders, government, and communities should collaborate and help each other live the principle of authenticity.

In view of the increasing importance of creating values that require shared societal responsibilities to be borne by not just firms but customers as well, the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether customers’ social capital plays a role in creating shared values for South Korean firms directly or indirectly through social identity and corporate authenticity.

To understand the effects of social capital on value co-creation, the authors conducted a face-to-face questionnaire survey with a selected group of 400 adult respondents aged more than 20 years. To verify precision in wording and sentence structure and the validity of questions in reflecting the study objective, the authors conducted a pretest on 40 respondents before administering the main survey. Ultimately, 50 questionnaires considered inappropriate and with inconsistent response patterns were discarded, leaving 350 questionnaires for the statistical analysis.

This research adopts the consumer-centric as well as societal perspectives to conceptualize value co-creation behavior, and tests the moderating roles of psychometric measures of self-monitoring and corporate trust. Next, the research confirms whether social identity and perceived corporate authenticity mediate the relationship between social capital and value co-creation.

The study results shed new insights into the societal, psychological and normative aspects of value co-creation.

Authenticity has become increasingly dominant in business practices, particularly in branding and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, as consumers want it in all aspects of their lives. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of perceived CSR authenticity in predicting perceived brand loyalty (i.e. brand trust, positive word of mouth [PWOM]) via perceived brand authenticity by considering the moderating effects of brand image on perceived brand authenticity and loyalty to determine its influence in the global branding context.

Using a non-probability convenience sampling technique, this study received 817 responses from consumers who regularly used global brands. Finally, this research examined 734 responses to test the proposed hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

This study discovered that perceived CSR authenticity strengthened perceived brand authenticity, which fostered perceived brand loyalty by enhancing brand trust and motivating consumers to spread PWOM about global brands. Similarly, perceived CSR authenticity directly influenced perceived brand loyalty by enhancing brand trust but did not affect PWOM. Likewise, the moderating effect of brand image was significant in fostering perceived brand loyalty by enhancing brand trust, but it had no effect on PWOM. In contrast, the brand image had a significant negative effect on perceived brand authenticity.

This research offered many insightful suggestions to global managers in the manufacturing and service industries that might assist them in designing and implementing several branding strategies to achieve corporate objectives.

This novel research contributes to the attribution theory by examining consumers’ perceptions of CSR authenticity, brand image, brand authenticity and brand loyalty from the global branding perspective.

The aim of the research is to identify the factors that create an authentic company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement and to investigate whether an authentic CSR engagement influences the purchase intention. In addition, the study attempts to provide insights into the mediation role of attitude toward the company and frequency of purchase on purchase intention.

In this study, a theoretical framework is developed in which major antecedents of authentic CSR are identified. A specific example of a brand and its corporate social responsibility activities was used for the study. An online questionnaire was used to collect the data. To verify the hypothesis, structural equation modeling with the partial least squares method was used. A total of 240 people participated in the study.

The results of the study confirmed that CSR authenticity positively influences consumer purchase intention. Furthermore, the hypothesized impact of CSR authenticity on attitudes toward the company and frequency of purchase could be verified.

Although there is research on the antecedents influencing the consumer's perceived authenticity of CSR, it has not addressed differences in impact and has not presented a full picture of influencing antecedents. In addition, CSR proof as a new antecedent is investigated in the study. Moreover, research on outcomes of perceived CSR authenticity still lacks depth. The study therefore addresses this research gap by providing an extensive research framework including antecedents influencing CSR authenticity and outcomes of CSR authenticity.

This study aims to make a distinction between two types of authenticity (indexical vs iconic), the influence of both of which on the consumer’s inference of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) motivation is determined. Meanwhile, the consumer inference of CSR activities can be affected by the situational context within which the CSR activities are contained. Therefore, the effect of the interaction between the authenticity type and the given social distance (based on the construal level theory) was also examined.

The study conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects design experiment to examine the effects of authenticity type (indexical/iconic) and social distance (close/distant) on the perceived motive of the CSR information in a scenario.

The findings showed significant main effect of authenticity type but no significant main effect of social distance on persuasion knowledge. Participants in the indexical authenticity condition perceived a higher degree of persuasion knowledge than the participants in the iconic authenticity condition. Social distance moderated the effect of authenticity type such that for indexical authenticity, there was a significant difference on persuasion knowledge when the social distance was large. However, for iconic authenticity, the perception of persuasion knowledge was not significantly different between a large distance and a close distance.

The study identified the type of authenticity that is mainly perceived as a result of CSR activities and also determined its relation to the social distance dimension to infer a firm’s CSR motives.

In response to the rise of socially conscious consumers, brands have been taking a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) to drive brand equity. Nevertheless, merely engaging in CSR is not enough to have a positive impact on the value consumers give to a brand. The success of a CSR program depends on its consumers’ perceived authenticity. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how the perception of CSR authenticity, and consequently brand equity, can be enhanced by leveraging brand value co-creation.

The study uses a mixed-method approach to test its hypotheses. Study 1 collects survey data from a national representative sample in the USA, which is analyzed using structural equation modeling. Study 2 collects experimental data from a public university’s research pool, also in the USA, which is analyzed using ANOVA and mediation analysis.

This study demonstrates that when consumers believe that a brand is co-creative – i.e. consumers are allowed to participate in the creation of value – they will likely perceive the brand’s CSR program as more authentic, which in turn will positively affect brand equity.

The findings of this study offer implications for academics and brand managers interested on how to effectively leverage CSR for brand building. Specifically, it demonstrates that embracing CSR alone may not be sufficient to enhance brand equity and that brand managers should consider leveraging co-creation to strengthen perceptions of CSR authenticity.

The current market conditions are driving firms to plan, design and implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies that are true to the firms' real sense, i.e. authentic. Authenticity is an important aspect of micro-foundations of CSR in shaping the way social responsibility initiatives would impact the stakeholders including the customers, partners, current members of the organization and shareholders. This calls for a need to synthesize past research on CSR authenticity in order to propose directions for future research.

The current study synthesizes relevant literature on CSR authenticity using systematic literature review (SLR) approach. In total, 34 research works were identified and examined to seek insights on CSR authenticity.

Findings of the study identified various miro-, meso- and macro-level determinants of CSR authenticity and different set of outcomes having implications on business and society. The study also proposes a comprehensive definition of CSR authenticity which was somewhat missing in existing literature.

The study provides strong theoretical and managerial implications. Particularly, the study provides directions for future research on the topic.

In this paper, a review of literature on CSR authenticity is currently missing.

This study aims to crystallize the research landscape of corporate social responsibility (CSR) authenticity by systematically analyzing CSR scholarships published in peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2021.

Quantitative content analysis was used to systematically analyze 52 peer-reviewed articles on CSR authenticity. In particular, this study coded the conceptualizations and operationalizations of CSR authenticity, research contexts, applied theoretical frameworks and constructs associated with authenticity in the CSR scholarships.

This study’s analysis revealed that CSR authenticity is a multifaceted and multidimensional concept researched in various contexts. Yet, it still lacks clear and consistent conceptualization and theorization. Methodologically, qualitative and quantitative methods have equally contributed to the investigation of CSR authenticity. However, scale development and validation still need to improve.

The sample of this research is limited by the searching method and language restriction. This research contributes to CSR scholarships by describing the growing landscape of CSR authenticity research, identifying key research gaps and offering suggestions for future research.

Practitioners can use the findings as references to develop more authentic CSR activities.

This study is an early attempt to examine the research on CSR authenticity, which has been inconclusive and disorganized, despite the rapid growth of publications in recent years.